Indian teenager poisons her father and brother… because they disapproved of her boyfriend

A teenage girl has been arrested in India on charges of killing her father and brother who opposed her affair with a lower-caste boy.

According to police, the 14-year-old confessed yesterday to mixing poison with a vegetable curry which she served to her father and younger brother who both died after consuming the dish.

The incident – a reversal of the usual ‘honour killing’ scenario – occurred on Saturday in Malpur village, 45 miles from Patna, the state capital of Bihar.

Reverse-honour killing: The deaths occurred in the small rural village of Malpur, 45 minutes from Patna, in the province of Bihar in India

The girl’s mother, Sunita Devi, told police she survived because she had been ill and refused to eat the food.

‘The girl took this extreme step as her family members, including father, brother and mother, were… against her love affair with a boy and her plans to marry him,’ senior police officer Upendra Kumar Sinha said.

The boy was a member of India’s Dalit community.

Dalits, or ‘untouchables’ as they used to be known, occupy the lowest rung in India’s rigid caste hierarchy.

Most live in poverty and do menial, supposedly ‘unclean’ jobs like collecting garbage.

The girl’s family, which belong to a higher caste, had previously beaten the boy when the couple were caught trying to elope.

Such incidents resulting from disputed inter-caste relationships more commonly see male family members murdering their daughter or sister for bringing ‘dishonour’ on the family.

There are no official figures on honour killings, though an independent study in 2010 suggested as many as 900 were committed every year in the northern Indian states of Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.